New aero chief for Honda Racing F1

[davewilson]

Highly rated aerodynamicist Ben Agathangelou is returning to Honda Racing F1, RealHondaF1.com has learned, nine years after leaving the team following the cancellation of Honda Racing's stillborn F1 programme, and 10 years after stepping down from British American Racing's forerunner Tyrrell.
Most recently the head of aerodynamics at Red Bull, Agathangelou has a wealth experience dating back to 1994, when he was an aerodynamics analyst for McLaren. He then moved to the under funded Tyrrell team in 1997 as senior aerodynamicist before being poached for Honda's F1 project, abandoned after the death of Harvey Postlethwaite.

"There were three of us designing a car from scratch," said Agathangelou of the Honda project. "The team were planning to enter F1 in 2000 - that never happened, but we were still chuffed with the car. We raised some eyebrows when we tested it against cars built by other F1 teams because ours was quite quick. This was personally satisfying because we had created something from nothing."

A spell as chief aerodynamicist at Benetton led him to Jaguar, and then Red Bull. "When I started here, I inherited the R3, which was probably the worst F1 car in the history of the universe," he said of the Jaguar team's car. "It was rubbish. But I like to think that you have more of an impact in an environment where everything isn't right, and I enjoy the throes of struggling to improve a car. To design the R4 for the 2003 season, our approach was 'throw it all away and start again'."

Agathangelou has now left Red Bull Racing, and is expected to join Honda Racing F1 before the end of the 2007 season, early enough to have some influence over the design direction of the RA108.

His appointment is the first of more to come, with RealHondaF1.com learning that there are to be some significant changes to the team announced after the forthcoming Monaco Grand Prix.